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The “snapshot” feature enabled by default on the new Xbox Series S / X consoles could suck a total of 4 billion kWh – the equivalent of one year of operation for a large power plant – from US owners until 2025 alone. it is according to a preliminary report released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit advocacy group focused on the environment.
As the name implies, the Series S / X’s (and Xbox One’s before) instant “on” feature allows users to skip normal startup time when turning on the console again. This saves about 10 to 15 seconds of waiting per power cycle on the S / X Series, versus about 45 seconds on the Xbox One. (This is separate from the highly promoted “fast resume” feature of the Xbox Series S / X that you charge the game state for recent titles directly from the system’s fast SSD storage and works in either mode)
The “Instant on” standby mode also allows the system to periodically check for system updates to download and install them between game sessions. But leaving the “snapshot on” feature on means that the Xbox Series S / X consumes nine to 10 watts of power 24 hours a day – even when not being actively used – compared to less than 1W if the standby settings are changed to “energy saving mode.
The Xbox Series S / X initially consumed 25 to 28W of “instant on” standby power at launch, but a recent firmware update caused a dramatic reduction, placing new systems below 13W designed by Xbox “instant on” mode One. The PlayStation 5, on the other hand, uses between 1 and 2 watts when idle in “sleep mode”.
It all comes down
Power consumption in the single-digit watt range may not seem like much, but it can increase when millions of systems are left connected and idle for years on end. For a single console, these 9W of additional “instant” power consumption can add up to about 78 kWh in a year, or about $ 10.60 in energy costs for an average home in the United States (going for the average of October 2020 EIA of 13.6 cents / kWh)
To estimate total “instantaneous” extra power consumption on all Xbox consoles, NRDC author Noah Horowitz told Ars that he assumed 30 million US sales of the Xbox Series S / X by 2025 (a figure based on sales Xbox One estimates). Most of these sales would be concentrated near the launch of the system in Horowitz modeling.
Horowitz then assumed that two-thirds of all Xbox owners would maintain the “default” power setting on their systems. “We have no hard data on this, but it is based on typical anecdotal experiences in which users tend to stick with the default option, rather than choosing to go out and select something different,” said Horowitz.
With all of this in mind, Microsoft’s decision to “turn on instantly” as the standard power mode adds up to 4 billion kWh of additional power consumption over the next five years. This is roughly equivalent to the annual output of a 500 MW power plant, and translates to about $ 500 million in additional energy costs and 3 million tons of additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by NRDC calculations.
“Given these numbers, our hope is that most users will be willing to wait 5-10 seconds longer for their console to restart if they know of the impact,” writes Horowitz.
Uncheck this box
The NRDC is asking Microsoft to change the system’s default settings to “energy saving” mode immediately after installation worldwide (this is already the case in Europe, thanks to the region’s energy efficiency directive). This change can be implemented by updating the firmware for existing and factory systems for newly sold systems going forward. Microsoft has not yet responded to Ars’ request on the matter.
The NRDC also notes that state-of-the-art game consoles consume a lot of energy when it comes to the simple function of playing movies or TV shows in streaming. The new consoles range from 31 W (for the Xbox Series S) to 70 W (for the PS5) when streaming from Netflix or Amazon Prime in NRDC tests. This is much more than 3W or more for a dedicated streaming box like Roku or Apple TV.
“We have repeatedly asked Sony and Microsoft to include a dedicated low-power chip for video playback on their consoles, and that request is even more important today, given the potential for long hours of ‘binge watching’ through the console” , writes Horowitz.